


two for the road

by bayloriffic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, F/F, Road Trips, Swan Queen Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayloriffic/pseuds/bayloriffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Emma breaks the curse, Regina decides to fight fire with fire. </p><p>Or: the one where Emma and Regina are trapped outside of Storybrooke and go on a road trip. Written for Swan Queen AU Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two for the road

**Author's Note:**

> Goes AU after Emma breaks the curse in season 1.

After Emma breaks the curse, Regina decides to fight fire with fire. Or magic with magic, as the case may be.

She still has the curse, locked down in the mausoleum alongside her collection of hearts, so she heads straight there from the hospital, determined to put things right again, to get her son back and to get Emma Swan out of their lives once and for all.

Luckily, Rumpelstiltskin chooses just that moment to return magic to Storybrooke, making the recasting of the curse easier than she had first imagined.

Though she doesn’t have a heart to sacrifice this time, she hopes that the original heart was enough, that this one element of the curse curse has carried over. Besides, magic is unpredictable in this land, and at this point Regina has very little to lose, so she might as well give it one last try, one last attempt to return Storybrooke to its cursed state and rid the town of its Savior.

And so she gets the curse, and she brings it to the well, and, in the end, the plan goes off with only one hitch. Unfortunately, it’s a big one. 

She’s not sure how exactly she manages to magic she and Emma outside of the new, re-cursed Storybrooke, but she does. And, thanks to the curse’s protection measures, they can’t seem get back inside the town. 

Regina tries first, charging headlong right into the curse, the purple haze so vague she only catches traces of it out of the corner of her eye. She hopes that because she cast the curse, the rules might not apply to her, that she'll be able to pass through the cloaking spell without incident.

It feels like an electric shock when she hits it, like she’s stepped through fire, and it throws her back. She lands on her back, the wind knocked out of her and her palms scraped raw as she skids on the asphalt. 

Emma goes more slowly, and she jerks away when the magic hits her, her face tight with pain.

“What now?” she asks, and Regina has absolutely no idea.

*

The curse is well-designed – Rumpelstiltskin is nothing if not thorough – and it’s impossible to know how the rules have changed with this second casting. 

There is a chance, a fairly strong one actually, that they’ll need to wait another 28 years, that the only thing that will break the curse is time, time and the Savior. 

But there’s no way she’s going to admit this out loud, no way she’s going to tell Emma she might have lost them both Henry. Twenty-eight years is a very long time, and she wonders if he’ll even remember the two of them if they see him again.

*

They walk for miles before they finally find an abandoned car on the side of the road, a mud-colored Chevy with a cracked windshield that Emma manages to get started with a rusty screwdriver they find in the glove box. 

Regina considers making a snide remark about Emma’s criminal skills, but then she remembers that there’s a chance she’ll never see Henry again, and instead she just sighs and buckles into the passenger seat. 

The car smells like mildew and fake pine needles and the seat is damp, the wetness seeping into the raw silk of her skirt. But it runs, and that’s about as much as they can hope for right now.

She puts her scraped palms flat against her thighs as Emma puts the car in gear, the two of them driving towards nowhere in particular, Storybrooke somewhere behind them, getting farther and farther away all the time.

*

They go to New York first, mostly because they don’t have any better options. 

Regina has no idea where to start in this new world, and Emma assures her that it’s the most likely place to find whatever they might need. 

They park their stolen Chevy in a garage and set out on foot, both of them moving with a kind of grim determination and barely even looking at each other.

Emma still has her cell phone on her, so she makes some calls, and pretty soon she’s leading Regina around the city, the two of them descending into basements and walking up five flights in trash-strewn stairwells that smell like urine. The rooms the end up in are always dark and smoky, smelling of incense and ash, cramped spaces full of candles and murky glass jars, a counter in the back manned by someone claiming to be a witch, an enchantress, a necromancer. 

The city itself is horrible, loud and dirty and so crammed full of people that it makes her head pound and her skin crawl. She misses Storybrooke, she misses her office and her home and the complete and utter deference that people used to show her, once upon a time. 

She misses her son.

They go from shop to shop, room to room, until it’s long past dark, until even the most dedicated of magic shops are locking their doors and turning around their _Closed_ signs for the night. They’re in a small shop in the East Village, just a single room with a ancient wood counter and a woman with an unruly mass of white-grey hair and so much costume jewelry it jingles when she moves, when they finally get what could be described as their first real lead. 

Emma’s explained the situation to the woman, who listens to the whole thing in silence, nodding occasionally, the jangle of her bracelets setting Regina’s teeth on edge.

“Oh yes,” she finally says when Emma’s finished. “That is quite a difficult predicament you’ve found yourselves in. Quite difficult indeed.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “Can you help us or not?” she snaps. Emma turns around to glare at her, but Regina ignores her.

The woman sniffs. “I cannot. But I believe I know someone who can…” she trails off. “Wait here.” She holds up her index finger before disappearing through the beaded curtain behind the counter.

“This is a waste of time,” Regina announces. The counter is slightly sticky, and Regina presses her hands hard against the soft wood, the scrapes on her palms stinging painfully as she imagines what she could do if there were magic here, if this weren’t such a farce.

“Regina,” Emma hisses. “Stop it.” She darts a quick glance back to where the curtain’s still swaying slightly, the plastic beads clinking dully in the quiet of the shop. 

“Stop what, Miss Swan? Being realistic?”

Emma sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks tired, dark circles under her eyes and her shoulders drooping. “This woman can help us.”

Regina scoffs. “Right. Just like the last five women were supposed to help us.”

“Regina–” Emma starts, but then the woman comes back, stepping up to the counter and holding a small white card out to them. 

Emma spares Regina one last narrow-eyed look before she takes the card. “San Francisco?”

“She can help you,” the woman says, and she stares right at Regina as she says it. There’s a cast in one of her eyes, giving her an unsettling, off-kilter look. “She can get you what you need.”

“Thank you,” Emma says to the woman, tucking the card into the pocket of her jacket with a tired smile. Regina doesn’t say anything, just turns on her heel and walks out of the shop, and she can feel Emma’s and the woman’s eyes on her the whole way.

*

It’s almost dawn by the time they finally make it back to the car, the sky lightening from black to a dull, heavy grey, and Emma’s almost tripping on her own feet, her head nodding and her blinks getting longer and longer, her eyes drifting closed every couple of seconds. 

“I’ll drive,” Regina tells her when they get to the car. In the dull pre-dawn light it looks even worse than it did in the sunlight, dusty and dirty and sad.

Emma picks her head up and just stares at her for a few seconds, like she’s debating if it’d be worse to give up a tiny bit of control to Regina or fall asleep at the wheel and die in a fiery crash. “Fine,” she finally says. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Regina tells her, and Emma just nods, like she’s too tired to argue, going back around to the passenger side while Regina sits behind the wheel. Emma grabs the screwdriver out of the glove box again and gets the car started.

“Let me know if you want me to take over,” Emma says, vaguely. Her eyes are already closed, her head lolling against the window. 

Regina just nods. Holding the steering wheel makes her palms burn, but she grips it tightly, the pain reminding her what she needs to do.

*

They’re somewhere in Ohio when Emma finally wakes up, sitting straight up with a gasp and a panicked look on her face.

Regina just glances at her sidelong, not saying anything. She’s been driving for almost ten hours, her palms so raw that pain has started to make her eyes water.

“Where are we?” Emma finally says. Her voice is rough and she’s got mascara smeared under her eyes as she squints out the window at the cornfields flying past.

“Ohio,” Regina tells her simply.

“Oh,” Emma says, nodding. She looks a little dazed, like she hasn’t quite come fully awake. “Do they have corn in Ohio?”

Regina shrugs. “Apparently.”

Emma nods again, scrubbing a hand across her face. “Ready to switch?”

“Fine,” Regina says, even though she’s not. She’s exhausted, her eyes dry and burning, but at least she feels like she’s doing something, like she’s not just sitting idly by while everything falls apart. 

So she pulls over at the next exit, guiding the Chevy into a truck stop parking lot. They need gas anyway, and they should probably eat something. It’s been more than 24 hours since they left Storybrooke. She takes the screwdriver out of the ignition, reaching over Emma’s knees to toss it into the glove compartment. 

“Jesus, Regina,” Emma says, and she’s looking at Regina’s hands, horrified. 

There’s blood on her hands, she realizes, the scrapes on her palms tacky with it. “I’m fine, Miss Swan,” she says, getting out of the car and not waiting for a reply.

*

Even though it’s late afternoon, they both order breakfast, the tired-looking waitress scribbling down Emma’s order for scrambled eggs and toast, and nodding vaguely when Regina asks for apples on her pancakes. 

Rather than sit in uncomfortable silence with Emma while they wait for their food, Regina excuses herself to the ladies’ room. Her hands are a mess, red and raw and crusted with dried blood. There are even a few pieces of asphalt still embedded in her skin, and she takes a long time carefully cleaning out the scrapes, the bright pink liquid soap from the dispenser making the cuts burn like they’re being doused in acid. 

When she finally gets back to their booth, the food has arrived, but Emma hasn’t touched hers, just sits staring out the window at the parking lot beyond. 

Regina sits across from her, their knees bumping under the tables. Emma glances over at her, and blinks. “Do you think he’s okay?” she asks. 

“Henry?”

“No, Mr. Gold.” Emma rolls her eyes and picks listlessly at her eggs with her fork. “Yes, Henry. Do you think he’s okay?”

“Of course,” Regina says, taking a bite of pancakes. The apples taste slightly metallic, like they’re from a can. She misses Granny’s. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Emma nods, but she looks unconvinced. “But without us there...where...I mean, who do you think is taking care of him?”

Regina swallows the pancakes, her throat suddenly dry. She puts down her fork and folds her hands against the cheap formica tabletop. Emma’s knee is still touching hers under the table, her jeans rough against the bare skin of Regina’s leg. 

“Henry is fine,” she says again. She won’t entertain the thought that he’s not. Not after everything he’s just been through. After everything she put him through. “Now. Finish your eggs so we can get back to our son.”

*

They make it all the way to Wyoming, only stopping for gas and food and bathroom breaks, before they’re forced to stop. 

There’s a terrible summer storm just outside of Cheyenne, hail and bright forks of lightning and gusts of wind so heavy they almost blow the Chevy completely off the road. It’s late, past midnight, and they’re in the middle of nowhere, so it takes miles and miles before they find a motel, a crappy rat-trap just off the interstate. It’s almost booked, the parking lot full of semis and mini-vans, and Emma waits in the car while Regina dashes into the office to see if they’ve got any vacancies. 

There’s a dead-eyed man browsing through a beat-up issue of _Guns & Ammo_ sitting behind the desk, and when Regina asks for two rooms, he doesn’t even look at her.

“One room left,” he says, turning the page of his magazine. “Cash or credit?”

*

“Seriously?” Emma says, when Regina comes out with just the one key. She’s parked the car and is huddling under the awning in front of the office, her hands tucked up inside the sleeves of her red leather jacket. “One room?”

Regina brushes past her, making her way to the end of the building. “Well, we can keep driving if you’d like. Take our chances with the storm.” 

Emma gives a long-suffering sigh, and starts trudging toward the end of the motel. They’re in the farthest room from the office, the one at the very end of the line. “Fine.”

*

Their room is disgusting, matted brown shag carpet and peeling wallpaper and roaches in the bathroom. There’s also only bed, a sagging mattress and a stained bedspread, smaller than any bed Regina’s ever slept in in her life. 

“Shit,” Emma says when she sees it, and Regina couldn’t have said it better herself. 

Regina sighs and leans against the doorframe. Outside, the hail has started in earnest, and there’s no way they can drive in this storm. They’re here for the night. 

*

The bed is not much bigger than it looks, but she and Emma manage to fit without touching at all, the two of them clinging to opposite sides of the mattress. Regina’s exhausted and they still have almost an entire day’s drive ahead of them; all she wants to do is pretend she’s anywhere but here and get some sleep.

But: “Why did you do it?” Emma asks very quietly. A crack of lightning illuminates the room, a strobe flash in the darkness. 

“Do what?” Regina says. 

Beside her, Emma shifts, and Regina can feel her breath against the back of her neck. “Re-cast the curse,” she says. “Why did you do it?”

Regina swallows hard, closing her eyes. “I wanted Henry to love me again,” she admits, her voice breaking as hot tears prick behind her eyes. She blinks, trying to stop them from falling. She will not cry here, in this crappy motel room, in bed with her mortal enemy. She won’t.

Emma inhales sharply. “Henry still loves you.”

“He doesn’t,” Regina says, blinking, blinking, blinking. “He can’t. Not after what I’ve done.” 

Emma puts her hand on her shoulder, and Regina jumps a little. “Regina,” she says again, and the compassion in her voice makes Regina hate her more than she ever has. 

Regina’s not interested in pity, not interested in this gentle understanding. But Emma’s hand is warm and steady on her shoulder, and after a couple of seconds, Regina turns over so that they’re face to face. In the dark, Emma is watching her, her eyes wide and bright. 

“Henry loves you,” Emma says again. “You’re his mother.” 

Regina bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from sobbing. Henry doesn’t love her, not after what she’s done. But then she thinks of her mother, of her dark, empty eyes and her bright red smile. Regina dreams about her sometimes, about Cora holding her and smiling and telling her what a powerful sorcerer she’s become, how strong. Regina’s throat burns and her chest aches, and nothing has worked out like she planned.

“Get some sleep, Miss Swan,” she says, rolling over so that her back is to Emma. Her shoulder feels cold where Emma’s hand was, like she’s lost a part of herself. Outside, the storm rages on, hail and wind and loud cracks of thunder. “We’ve still got a long way to go.” 

*

They find what they’re looking for in San Francisco, the name the woman gave them in New York leading them to a dim, cluttered shop in Russian Hill. 

It looks like the other shops they’ve been to, but there’s something in the air, a heavy humidity that makes Regina think that maybe this place will be different.

There’s another counter, another beaded curtain, another grey-haired woman who beckons them with one gnarled finger as they enter the shop. 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, and she’s got the same cast in her eye as the woman in Manhattan, the one who directed them here. “You seek magic.”

“Yes,” Regina says, rolling her eyes. “That’s why we came to a magic shop.”

Beside her, Emma steps closer to the counter, holding out the card they were given. “We were told you could help us.”

The woman smiles and reaches below the counter and pulling out a small jar of purple-grey powder and setting it in front of her. “For you.”

Regina steps forward, squinting at the powder. There’s something about it, a slight shimmer, that makes her breath catch in her throat. It looks like it might be real.

She reaches for it, but the woman scoops it back up, shaking her head. “Together,” she says, nodding first at Regina then at Emma. 

Regina stops, her hand still outstretched. “No,” Emma says from behind her. “No, I’m not – she’s the one who can use it.”

The woman shakes her head, the jar still clutched in her hands. “Together,” she says again, nodding at their hands until Emma reaches over and takes Regina’s hand in hers, Regina flinching slightly as her palm scrapes against Emma’s. But then, the woman smiles, opening the jar and blowing over the top of it, the powder misting out towards them.

And then there’s a flash, hot and bright and electric, and it’s like she and Emma are connected, like they’re one person, like they’re two halves of a whole. It’s a rush that moves through her whole body, electrifying every part of her, her skin vibrating and her heart pounding. She can feel Emma’s heart beat through her fingers, her pulse moving in time with Regina’s, and she gets a hot, languid feeling, deep in her belly. When Emma moves, just the barest twitch of her fingers against the back of Regina’s hand, Regina gasps and pulls her hand away, the feeling too much, too intense. 

“What the hell was that?” Regina demands. The skin on her palm is smooth and undamaged, the wounds from the road gone. Her heart is racing, pounding wildly in her chest, and she feels more alive than she has in longer than she can remember, longer than she’s ever been in this world. 

“Together,” the woman says again, her mouth curled up at the corners. She reaches up and clasps her hands together so that her palms are pressed flat and her fingers are intertwined. “You are stronger together. It must be done together.”

Regina nods, and has to clench her now-healed hand into a fist to stop herself from reaching out to Emma, to stop herself from touching her. 

The woman hands her a vial, a small glass tube filled with a blue, swirling brightness. It’s magic, Regina realizes – real, true magic, a magic as strong as anything she ever encountered in the Enchanted Forest.

“What do we do now?” Emma asks. Her eyes are bright, and she’s breathing a little heavily, her face flushed pink.

“Now,” Regina says, clutching the vial tight enough that the edges of the glass dig into her hand. She still feels a little shaky, like the rush still hasn’t quite left her body. “We go back to Storybrooke. Now we go back to our son.” 

*

They only stop once the entire drive back to Maine. They’ve been taking turns at the wheel – one of them driving while the other tries to sleep – but after they’ve been driving for a day and a half, neither one of them have actually managed to get any rest.

It’s not that Regina’s not tired, because she is; she’s exhausted. But she can still feel that heat, that electricity that sparked between them in the old woman’s shop. It feels unfinished, somehow, and Regina can’t help but think that she shouldn’t have pulled her hand away, that the power between them could be even stronger. 

When she finally stops, pulling off the interstate just past the Colorado state line, Emma glances at her sidelong, but doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t said anything since they left San Francisco. 

Regina goes into the office and she doesn’t ask for two rooms and when Emma sees the single key, she doesn’t protest. 

The room is much cleaner than the last place, white walls and clean sheets, and when Emma kisses her, Regina’s barely surprised. 

She tastes like magic, like ozone and power, and when Regina puts her still-damaged hand on Emma’s hip, the magic flows between them, and Regina doesn’t even have to look at her palm to know that it’s healed. 

Regina pushes the red leather jacket off her shoulders, and Emma gasps when Regina trails her fingertips down the pale skin of her arms.

Emma opens her mouth under Regina’s, sweeping her tongue along Regina’s lower lip, her knee pressing between Regina’s legs. 

The vial of magic is in Regina’s pocket and it gets warm against her hip, so hot that she’s worried the glass might break. It doesn’t, though, not even when Emma reaches back and pulls down the zipper of her skirt, their hips pressed together and Regina’s heart just racing away in her chest.

*

They drive the rest of the way to Storybrooke without stopping, taking turns at the wheel, each of them only sleeping when they’re too tired to keep their eyes open, both of them keeping an arm on the cracking brown plastic of the console, touching the entire drive. 

Neither one of them mentions it, but Regina can’t seem to stop herself, that heart-pounding, electric rush something she’s already started to crave.

The vial of magic’s still in her pocket, pulsing and bright and alive, and Emma’s arm is warm and familiar against hers, and the curse that surrounds Storybrooke doesn’t have a chance.

*

It’s a beautiful summer afternoon when they get back to the town line, and the cloaking spell glitters in the sunlight. 

The road leading into town looks deserted, but Regina knows that’s just part of the curse. The entire population of Storybrooke could be just on the other side of the line and it would still look empty. But even though she can’t see anything, she knows that it’s there, that Storybrooke – and Henry – are on the other side of the cloaking spell. 

Regina takes the vial out of her pocket, the magic inside glowing brighter than ever. Beside her, Emma takes a deep breath, holding out her hand for Regina to take.

“Ready?” Emma asks as Regina takes her hand. 

“Yes, Miss Swan,” Regina says, taking the stopper off the vial. The magic flows into the air, and she thinks about the feel of Emma’s mouth against her, the smooth softness of her lips as she holds Emma’s hand in hers, the magic coursing through her, power and heat coursing through her body. “I’m ready.”


End file.
